


so long as i get somewhere

by BeatriceEagle



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, Reverse Robins, and instead of a baby it's five children of varying degrees of orphanhood, because i know myself, except all of their relative ages are the same, it's barbara gordon with a library of child development literature, it's just the order that bruce adopts them in that's reversed, mary poppins except instead of a nanny with a big bag, so it's three men and a baby except instead of three men it's one man and his long-suffering butler, this is humorous now but i can't guarantee it won't eventually get angsty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29513571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeatriceEagle/pseuds/BeatriceEagle
Summary: To have one unexpected child may be regarded as chance; to adopt five begins to look like premeditation._____Reverse Robins with a twist: Everyone's ages stay the same, but Bruce adopts them in reverse order.
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne
Comments: 23
Kudos: 167





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I made [this post on tumblr](https://flybynightwing.tumblr.com/post/639705309788635136/random-idea-that-im-never-going-to-write-reverse) and said I was never actually going to write it, essentially dooming myself to writing it.
> 
> This is my first time posting a chaptered fic as a WIP, so I have no idea what the posting schedule will look like, but I'm not abandoning this thing before I get to Dick Grayson, so rest assured that it'll be finished.
> 
> The title is from Alice in Wonderland; the summary is a paraphrase of Oscar Wilde.
> 
> No particular warnings for this one! At least not yet.

Of course, Talia couldn’t just show up at the doorstep with a baby. That would have been troubling enough, but _no_ , she had to send out genetically engineered winged monsters to herd him into a trap in the maze of the London Underground.

(“I wonder what could ever have attracted a woman such as that to you,” Alfred said later, when Bruce updated him on the outcome of the mission. Bruce chose to take the statement at face value. No sarcasm whatsoever.)

“Do you remember our time in the moonlight?” Talia pronounced, as several giant man-bats held Bruce against the wall with their claws.

“My memory is perfectly functional,” Bruce said.

“Good. Then you will be prepared to meet our son.”

Bruce was absolutely _not_ prepared for that, but Talia beckoned to a minion off to the side anyway. The minion stepped out of the shadows. In his arms was a sleeping infant, approximately six months old.

“This is Damian. Damian Wayne.”

“Why are you telling me this now?” _Why didn’t you tell me before?_ being the implied question.

Talia lifted the infant gently out of the minion’s arms and cradled him to her breast. “I had hoped to raise him in the ways of the League. To be a fierce fighter, like his father. But of late, I grow concerned about my father’s intentions towards him.”

“How so?”

“Damian is not safe with the League,” Talia said, instead of answering. An infuriating trait.

(“Yes, I do so hate it when one’s conversational partner leaves one with unanswered questions,” Alfred said later. Bruce told himself that Alfred was being very agreeable, today.)

Bruce finally succeeded in wrenching his arms away from the man-bats. “So you want me to take on Ra’s. Again.”

“I can handle my father,” Talia said. “I want you to take on Damian.”

There was no way that Bruce was doing that.

#

“Not to question your actions, Master Bruce,” Alfred said, 16 hours later, as Bruce frantically held a wailing infant in front of his face, searching for the off switch, “but had you warned me that you were bringing a baby home, I could have been prepared.”

“I picked up formula and diapers,” Bruce said. It was ridiculous of Alfred to suggest he wasn’t prepared. Batman was always prepared. “But he’s not hungry, and he’s not wet.”

“Perhaps if you held him like an infant, and not a sack of potatoes.”

“I’m holding him just fine.”

Alfred held out his arms. “May I?”

It was coincidence that Damian settled down the moment Alfred held him. You couldn’t assert causation from a single instance.

#

“Hold him higher up on your shoulder, Master Bruce.” Alfred mimed hitching an infant up into the air. “He likes to see the world.”

Glaring, Bruce raised his arms several inches so that Damian could peek over his shoulder. Damian ceased crying.

“Perfect.” Alfred beamed. “You two have fun, and I’ll call you when it’s time for dinner.”

“Wait. You can’t leave.”

Alfred didn’t even bother to turn around as he headed for the door of Bruce’s office. “I assure you I can.”

“I can’t watch him. I have phone calls to make!” To Lucius Fox, to Bruce Wayne’s latest girlfriend to politely break things off, to the scientist who was developing a new Kevlar alternative he might want to use in his suits…

“Well, I have a uniform to mend, an armory to restock, and a tarte tatin to prepare.” Alfred lingered in the doorway. “Perhaps you should reconsider daycare.”

“He can’t go to daycare. There’s an immortal megalomaniac warlord out for his blood!”

Alfred tilted his head and rolled his eyes in the same motion, as if to say, _Yes, yes, the immortal megalomaniac warlord, we’ve all been informed_. “A babysitter, then. Surely one of Bruce Wayne’s many friends has a reliable teenager they can recommend.”

Bruce frowned, and added a phone call to Jim Gordon to his list.

#

Barbara Gordon came with a diaper bag, a curated lullaby playlist, and a list of recommendations the length of Bruce’s forearm.

Bruce didn’t trust her. The girl still wore braces, for God’s sake!

“You have to hold him…”

Barbara gracefully lifted Damian to her shoulder. He burbled happily, twisting his head to look at Bruce.

“How should I hold him?” Barbara asked, accommodatingly.

Bruce glowered.

#

“Batman. Come in, Batman.”

Bruce paused in the middle of taking down the False Facer he’d been battling, one hand around the man’s collar and the other hovering above his face in a fist. “What is it, Penny One?”

“Agent D has awoken, and refuses to settle down. I believe he would like to hear your voice.”

“Not the time.” Bruce snapped his fist out, sending the False Facer to the floor.

“I apologize. What would be the appropriate time for you to tend to your son?”

Bruce sighed, approaching the bomb that had been fixed to the warehouse wall, loaded with enough C4 to take out all of Black Mask’s competitor’s goods—and probably more than a few of the competitors themselves. “What should I say to him?”

“Why not tell him a story?”

The wires were a little tricky. Bruce retrieved a pair of pliers from his belt. “I don’t know any stories.”

“I hardly believe that.”

Red wire first, then yellow. “Once upon a time,” he said, snipping the wires carefully, “there was a knight. He had an enemy who always wore a black mask, and one day the man in the black mask placed a bomb in a… rival castle.”

“I do so love the classics,” said Alfred.

#

Bruce frowned as Damian crawled along the edge of his nursery, lining up his stuffed animals just so. “Shouldn’t he be walking by now?”

“It can take until 14 months for children to take their first steps,” said Barbara, lisping on the word _steps_. “Nine months is a perfectly typical age for Damian to still be crawling.”

He furrowed his brow. “How do you know that?”

“I’ve read a lot of parenting books. _The Whole Brain Child_ , _The Philosophical Baby_ , _Unconditional Parenting_.” Barbara looked up at him, craning her neck all the way back in order to do so. “Would you like to borrow some?”

#

Parenting books, Bruce decided after a single deeply aggravating afternoon of reading, were a scam.

#

“Mr. Wayne! MR. WAYNE!”

Bruce grimaced. They had installed an intercom in the nursery for a _reason_ , but Barbara insisted on yelling for him across the mansion.

He stalked across the second floor, past three bedrooms and a walk-in closet, and poked his head in the door of the nursery. “What is it, B—”

Barbara sat at one end of the nursery, behind a robot toy dog that she’d brought for Damian, which was fixedly wagging its tail. At the other end of the nursery, Damian, on his feet, took stumbling but determined steps towards the dog.

Bruce took his phone out of his pocket and started recording. Barbara grinned knowingly at him.

“For Alfred,” he said.

#

“Well, I see we’re in no danger of missing the theme,” Jim Gordon said, noting the black and yellow streamers, black and yellow balloons, black and yellow paper plates, and the black and yellow candles on the Batman birthday cake.

“He’s Master Damian’s favorite superhero,” said Alfred, smoothly transferring a slice of cake to Barbara’s plate.

“Bababababa,” said Damian, as he had been non-stop for the past week. He smashed his little fists into the cake on his high chair.

“Bar-ba-ra,” said Barbara, enunciating with the precision of a 1940s Hollywood actress. “You can do it, Damian. Say ‘Bar-ba-ra.’”

Bruce stabbed his plastic yellow fork into the slice of Batman’s cowl that Alfred had given him.

“Bababababa.”

“Maybe he’s trying to say ‘Bruce,’” Jim said amiably, as he took a bite of Batman’s utility belt.

“How dreadfully informal of him,” said Alfred.

“Bababa baman!”

All heads turned towards Damian.

“What did you say, Damian?” said Barbara.

“BAMAN!” Damian repeated, his chubby little index finger pointed unmistakably at Bruce.

The heads swiveled in Bruce’s direction.

“It’s his favorite superhero,” Bruce said. He wasn’t blushing. Batman didn’t blush.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite what Alfred implied, Bruce never went out looking for a second child. Why would he? It was difficult enough handling just the one.
> 
> But when a perfect second child _presented_ herself to you, it would be foolish not to seize on the opportunity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Already, this chapter is less funny. I guess traumatized 9-year-old trained assassins just don't make for great comedy?
> 
> That said, no particular warnings.

Despite what Alfred implied, Bruce never went out looking for a second child. Why would he? It was difficult enough handling just the one.

But when a perfect second child _presented_ herself to you, it would be foolish not to seize on the opportunity.

Batman was swinging above Crime Alley, as he did at the close of most patrols. The streets were mostly clear at this time of night, but in one shadowy corner, he spotted some suspicious activity. Two subjects, age 18-22, closed in on a small girl, age 8-10. One subject held a knife.

He dropped closer, half his mind planning the fight, half planning what to say. Something suitably imposing, but child appropriate. For the girl.

Maybe “I don’t think so.” “I don’t think so” was always a good one.

As he prepared to drop from the rooftops, however, the girl made her move.

A wrist lock to the subject with the knife, making him cry out sharply and drop the weapon, which the girl smoothly kicked out of arm’s reach. Nails to his eyes as she reached across him, and then a throw across her arm, leaving him sprawled on the asphalt.

Subject two grabbed the girl in a bear hug from behind. Unbothered, she hooked a leg around one of his, kicked his knee forward, and ducked to pull him to the ground by the ankle.

All that in the time it took Batman to reach the ground. The girl looked up, unperturbed, having just collected the knife.

“And stay down,” Batman said to the men.

He faced the girl. “What’s your name?”

The girl said nothing.

“Where do you live?”

The girl said nothing.

“Will you give me the knife?”

The girl hugged the knife closer to herself.

Bruce thought hard. What did children like?

“Would you like some ice cream?”

The girl narrowed her eyes, and followed Batman out of the alley, knife at the ready the entire way.

Bruce would take her to Alfred. He would know what to do.

#

“What do you expect me to do?” Alfred said.

“She’s about nine. You know about nine-year-olds.” Bruce gestured to the girl, who sat cross-legged on the chair in front of the cave’s computer bank, eating chocolate ice cream with one hand while brandishing the knife in front of her with the other.

“I know how to get them to brush their teeth, not how to make them relinquish bladed weapons. What is your _plan_ , Master Bruce?”

“Get her someplace safe. Find her parents.”

“And if they can’t be found?”

“I’m not going to adopt her, if that’s your concern.”

#

“What do you think for her room? Green? Yellow? Pink?” Bruce held the paint swatches up for Alfred to examine.

“Perhaps you should ask the young lady.”

Bruce glanced at the girl, sitting silently on the drop cloth on the floor of her new room. Damian stacked blocks in a play pen next to her. They had tried Spanish, French, Russian, several dialects of Arabic, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, and five different types of sign language. If she spoke a language, it wasn’t one that Bruce was familiar with.

“Paint?” he said, waving the swatches. “For your walls?” He picked up a paint brush and swiped it up and down.

The girl reached into the play pen and took a purple block away from Damian’s stack. Damian started to cry.

“That’s not nice,” Bruce said. “We don’t steal.”

The girl stared at him blankly.

Bruce looked at Alfred. Surely, this was the moment where Alfred’s childcare expertise would shine through.

“Master Bruce is correct,” said Alfred. “We don’t steal.”

“Thank you, Alfred.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

Bruce inched forward to see if he could take the block from the girl. She stared at him hard, held the block out in front of her, and then pointed to the paint brush in Bruce’s hand.

“You want me to… paint the block?”

The girl shook the block. She pointed from it, to the paint swatches, to the paint brush.

“You want me to paint the walls purple!”

The girl dropped the block back into the play pen. Damian stopped crying.

Bruce swung around to face Alfred. “Purple!”

Alfred smiled. It was a very knowing smile. Bruce hastily dropped the triumphant expression from his own face.

#

“What’s her name?” said Barbara.

“She doesn’t seem to have one,” said Bruce. “On the paperwork, she’s Jane Doe.”

Barbara frowned at the girl, who was performing a familiar kata on top of the Powerpuff Girls rug beside her bed. “She should have her own name. You should give her one.”

Bruce frowned. “Catherine is a family name.”

“Do you want to be Catherine?” Barbara said to the girl. The girl paused in her kata just long enough to make a sour face. “I don’t think she wants to be Catherine.”

“Elizabeth,” Bruce said.

“Elizabeth?” Barbara asked the girl. “Liz? Lizzie? Beth?”

The girl didn’t even pause to reject them.

“When I was little, I always wished my name was Cassandra,” Barbara said.

The girl stopped cold, her head tilting to the left.

“Cassandra?” Barbara said.

The girl nodded.

“Elizabeth is a perfectly good name,” Bruce grumbled.

#

“No, Cassandra.”

Bruce plucked the Wonder Woman doll out of her hands and returned it to the crying Damian. They had been worried for a while that Cassandra might unleash her clearly expert fighting skills on the baby, but so far she’d shown no signs of being violent outside of dangerous situations. She _did_ , however, like to steal Damian’s toys.

Damian gripped Wonder Woman tightly and flailed at Cassandra, hitting her on the shoulder.

“ _No_ , Damian.”

Damian had no qualms about being violent with Cassandra. Luckily, he wasn’t nearly as good at it. Bruce took Wonder Woman away from his second child (first child? How did one classify the child who was _born_ second but _arrived_ first?) and then deposited Damian in his play pen. Damian started to cry again.

“This isn’t working,” Bruce said. Alfred had suggested that organized play time might help Cassandra and Damian adjust to each other, but so far all it had done was exacerbate their rivalry over Damian’s toys.

“Maybe she’s jealous,” Barbara said.

“She has plenty of toys.”

“But not any superhero ones.” Barbara held up a Black Canary doll and gave it to Cassandra, who grabbed it eagerly.

Wait. Damian didn’t have any Black Canary toys.

“Where did that come from?” asked Bruce.

“I brought it,” said Barbara, the picture of innocence. “Girls like superheroes too.”

#

“ _No_ , Cassandra.”

Cassandra ignored Bruce and darted around him towards the car. She was wearing the mask from her Catwoman Halloween costume (another of Barbara’s gifts), a black sweater and leggings, and a black cape that she seemed to have made herself out of a bedsheet.

Alfred was going to be angry about the sheet. Bruce was under no illusions that it was _Cassandra_ he would be angry with, though.

Bruce ran past Cassandra and stood in her path, drawing his body into an impassable wall. “I know you know the word ‘no.’ You can’t come.”

Cassandra gave him a cold and searching stare that allowed Bruce, for one single moment, to understand what others saw when Batman looked at them. Then she attacked.

She wasn’t fighting to injure; every blow was measured, every kick just shy of real damage. But she was certainly fighting to win, and Bruce, who didn’t want to injure her _either_ , found it much more difficult than he would have predicted to subdue her.

Eventually, the sheer difference in sizes allowed Bruce to capture her in his arms. He lugged her upstairs to the kitchen, where Alfred was cleaning up for the night.

Alfred took one look at Cassandra and dropped his scrub brush.

"Surely you're not thinking of taking her on patrol with you?"

"No," said Bruce. He deposited Cassandra on one of the kitchen chairs and stared her down. "Stay here. Eat some ice cream."

Bruce waited until Cassandra was furiously digging into a bowl of double fudge brownie before heading back to the cave.

"Is that one of the good guest sheets?" Alfred called after him, appalled.

#

"No! Cassandra!"

But Cassandra didn't listen to Bruce. She leapt through the doorway to Damian's room and launched herself at one of the League assassins who had infiltrated through the window.

Bruce, busy with his own assassins, lost sight of her for 27 seconds after that. When he finally freed himself to try to go help Cassandra, he found that she had put down three men in the time he'd been fighting.

Relief battled with belated terror inside him, but before he could see which would win out in his response, a final assassin crashed through the window, followed closely by the woman who had thrown him.

"Talia," Bruce said, as the assassin groaned in pain on the ground. "You said you had your father handled."

"I do," said Talia. "This was merely a skirmish."

"A skirmish in Damian's _bedroom_."

Rather than answer him, Talia leaned over Damian's crib and kissed her squalling son on the forehead. When she stood up, her eyes caught on Cassandra.

"Oh," she said. "It's you."

Cassandra stared at her without apparent recognition.

"You know this girl?" Bruce said. "You know where she came from?"

"I doubt she's a danger to you."

"That's not what I asked," Bruce said.

Talia climbed onto the windowsill, blew him a kiss, and dove out into the night.

"Do you know that woman?" Bruce asked, turning on Cassandra.

Cassandra picked up Damian's Batman doll from the shelf and poked it through the bars of Damian's crib. Damian stopped crying.

#

“Cassandra. It’s time.”

Cassandra looked up from the other end of the cave. She was moving through a kata, with Damian clumsily trying to imitate her motions.

There really _was_ something familiar about how she moved.

Cassandra joined Bruce by the car, smoothing her mask over her face. She had dismissed the idea of her own eared cowl, but she had been willing—eager, even—to wear a small bat symbol across her chest. It was black, like the rest of her outfit, and stood out from her torso like bas-relief.

It was also bulletproof, along with her leggings and cape.

“Ready?” Bruce asked, pulling up his own cowl.

Cassandra gave him a thumbs up.

Alfred, gathering up Damian at the other end of the cave, sighed loudly.

“Remember,” Bruce said. “You have to do exactly as I say.” Or gestured, as the case might be.

Cassandra nodded.

“Let’s go,” Bruce said. “If you’re good, we’ll have ice cream when we get back.”


End file.
